Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Pamela Anderson asked to cover up for TV show

LONDON - Former Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson has been asked to cover up during her stint with hit TV show “Dancing With The Stars” as producers fear a major wardrobe malfunction. TV bosses have presented Anderson with a list of requirements to make sure she doesn’t slip up and slip out on the show, reports contactmusic.com. “They continue to tell Pam that she must make her costume designs more modest, or she has to wear a bra and pasties,” said a source. “They live in fear of a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction,” the source added. 

pamela anderson

Leona Lewis sings for ‘Sex and the City 2′

LONDON - Singer Leona Lewis has recorded a song with singer Jennifer Hudson for the movie “Sex and the City 2″. “The pair have recorded the song and it’s being discussed as either the main theme or to feature on the soundtrack. They each have incredible voices and will appeal to both the UK and the US. It’s perfect for the next SATC (Sex and the City) film,” thesun.co.uk quoted a source as saying. Lewis had also sung the soundtrack for the Hollywood movie “Avatar”.

leona lewis

Drinking during adolescence adds to risk of breast disease, breast cancer

WASHINGTON - Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University have claimed that girls and young women who indulge in boozing raise their risk of benign (noncancerous) breast disease.Benign breast disease increases the risk for developing breast cancer.“Our study clearly showed that the risk of benign breast disease increased with the amount of alcohol consumed in this age group,” says Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, associate director of prevention and control at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. “The study is an indication that alcohol should be limited in adolescence and early adult years and further focuses our attention on these years as key to preventing breast cancer later in life.”The study was published in the May issue of Pediatrics (online April 12, 2010).About 80 percent of breast lumps are benign. But these benign breast lesions can be a step in a pathway leading from normal breast tissue to invasive breast cancer, so the condition is an important marker of breast cancer risk, Colditz indicates.To reach the conclusion, researchers studied girls aged 9 to 15 years at the study’s start and followed them using health surveys from 1996 to 2007. A total of 6,899 participants reported on their alcohol consumption and whether they had ever been diagnosed with benign breast disease. The participants were part of the Growing Up Today Study of more than 9,000 girls from all 50 states who are daughters of participants in the Nurses’ Health Study II, one of the largest and longest-running investigations of factors that influence women’s health.The study showed that the more alcohol consumed, the more likely the participants were to have benign breast disease. Girls and young women who drank six or seven days a week were 5.5 times more likely to have benign breast disease than those who didn’t drink or who had less than one drink per week. Participants who reported drinking three to five days per week had three times the risk.The participants who were diagnosed with benign breast disease on average drank more often, drank more on each occasion and had an average daily consumption that was two times that of those whoid not have benign breast disease. They also had more episodes of binge drinking. (ANI)

Now, porn magazine for the blind!

LONDON - A pornographic magazine has been designed to be ‘enjoyed’ by the blind and visually impaired - complete with explicit text and raised pictures of naked men and women.rainchild of Canadian Lisa Murphy, Tactile Minds is on sale for 150 pounds, reports The Telegraph.Among the 17 raised images include a naked woman in a ‘disco pose’, a woman with ‘perfect breasts’ and a ‘male love robot’.isa says: “There are no books of tactile pictures of nudes for adults.“We’re breaking new ground. Playboy has an edition with Braille wording, but there are no pictures.”The author came up with the idea after realizing that the ‘blind have been left out in a culture saturated with sexual images’. (ANI)

Israel strikes suspected Gaza militants, at least 1 dead

Israeli forces strike Gaza militants, 1 deadGAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces fired at Gaza militants from helicopters and tanks early Tuesday, killing at least one Palestinian and wounding three others.Gaza hospital officials said two more casualties remained at the scene, and that it was unclear if they were alive.The clash erupted Tuesday near a border crossing in central Gaza. The Israeli military said it struck a group of Palestinians planting explosives near the border fence.The Islamic Jihad group said it clashed with Israeli forces who entered Gaza. The militants said they came under fire from a helicopter and Israeli tanks. They identified the dead man as a 23-year-old Islamic Jihad fighter.Gaza’s Hamas rulers have tried to maintain a cease-fire with Israel since the end of the Gaza war in January 2009. However, smaller milltant groups sporadically carry out attacks.Earlier this month, the militant Islamic group indicated it was trying to keep attacks on Israel in check, following a string of Palestinian rocket assaults on southern Israel and retaliatory Israeli strikes.Islamic Jihad said that on Sunday, Hamas police detained several of its fighters, along with those from another group, and made them sign pledges that they would not engage in attacks on Israel.Most of the rocket attacks on Israel had been claimed by groups considered more radical than Hamas. These groups accuse Hamas of going soft on its armed confrontation against Israel.Last year, Israel carried out a devastating military offensive in Gaza after years of rocket attacks. Since then, Hamas has tried to avoid provoking sweeping Israeli military action and it has not claimed responsibility for any rockets for more than a year.Israel holds Hamas solely responsible for maintaining quiet on the Gaza border.

Most Chinese women want to marry rich men

BEIJING - A majority of women in China want to marry men who inherit a large amount of wealth from their parents, a study has said.Around 60 percent of college girls want to marry men born into rich families who stand to inherit large amounts of assets from their parents, China Daily reported Monday.A survey carried out by the Women’s Federation of Guangzhou in Guangdong province found that 59.2 percent women prefer to marry men born in the 1980s and 57.6 percent choose men with great potential as their life partner.“Many college girls are more than willing to pursue a comfortable life by a less personal struggle,” Liu Shuqian, a professor at Guangzhou University was quoted as saying.Responding to another question regarding their partner’s unfaithfulness, 20 percent of women said they can tolerate occasional infidelity by their partners.Meanwhile, only 10 percent women said they will be loyal to one person in a lifetime.The survey interviewed 992 respondents between January to March 2010 and aimed to look into the values of college girls on issues like interpersonal relationships.

A pornographic book for the blind

LONDON - Raised pictures of naked men and women and explicit text - that’s what the blind will get to enjoy in a new pornographic book, a media report said Tuesday.Called Tactile Minds, it is the brainchild of Canadian Lisa Murphy and has been designed for the blind and visually impaired. The magazine costs 150 pounds, The Telegraph reported.A naked woman in a ‘disco pose’, a woman with ‘perfect breasts’ and a ‘male love robot’ are some of the 17 raised images.Murphy said she made the book to fill a gap in the market.“There are no books of tactile pictures of nudes for adults. We’re breaking new ground. Playboy has an edition with Braille wording but there are no pictures,” she was quoted as saying.Realising that the “blind have been left out in a culture saturated with sexual images”, she decided to make the book.

Most Chinese women want to marry rich men

BEIJING - A majority of women in China want to marry men who inherit a large amount of wealth from their parents, a study has said.

Around 60 percent of college girls want to marry men born into rich families who stand to inherit large amounts of assets from their parents, China Daily reported Monday.

A survey carried out by the Women’s Federation of Guangzhou in Guangdong province found that 59.2 percent women prefer to marry men born in the 1980s and 57.6 percent choose men with great potential as their life partner.

“Many college girls are more than willing to pursue a comfortable life by a less personal struggle,” Liu Shuqian, a professor at Guangzhou University was quoted as saying.

Responding to another question regarding their partner’s unfaithfulness, 20 percent of women said they can tolerate occasional infidelity by their partners.

Meanwhile, only 10 percent women said they will be loyal to one person in a lifetime.

The survey interviewed 992 respondents between January to March 2010 and aimed to look into the values of college girls on issues like interpersonal relationships.

Now, Bangladeshis wield Indian PAN cards

It takes only Rs 1,000 for a Bangladeshi infiltrator to acquire an Indian PAN (permanent account number) card. And another Rs 300 to walk across the 4,095 km Indo-Bangladesh border if sneaking in isn’t an option.

On April 8, the police in western Assam’s Dhubri district (adjoining Bangladesh) arrested 13 petty clothes traders at Gauripur town. Six of them were released after they produced documents establishing them to be residents of West Bengal. The remaining seven confessed to being Bangladeshi citizens.

The seven – all residents of Gopalganj district in Bangladesh – admitted to having paid Rs 300 per head at the border to step into Tripura earlier this year and traveled across the Northeast to peddle their wares at Gauripur.

The seven had three mobile phones and as many SIM cards from Indian cellular service providers. Two of them – Arif Sheikh and Tapan Biswas – possessed PAN cards an agent in Tripura capital Agartala had provided for Rs 1,000 each.

The agent, possibly going by an alias, is an inhabitant of Comilla district in Bangladesh (adjoining Tripura) who also home-delivers Indian SIM cards to would-be infiltrators, the arrested men said.

“Easy access to vital documents that can establish a foreigner as an Indian citizen makes it that much harder in detecting Bangladeshi nationals,” said Additional SP (Border) Deben Deka from Dhubri town. “Like infiltrators, even militants can easily acquire PAN cards.”

Deka added one of the arrested men confessed to have used his connection in the 5th Battalion of the Border Security Force (BSF) to cross over. The 5th Battalion mans a stretch of Meghalaya’s border with Bangladesh, far away from Tripura where the seven said they entered.

“It is very easy to allege. Let them (Assam police) give substantial indication who these men paid and at which point of Tripura’s 856 km border with Bangladesh, and we’ll take action,” BSF Inspector-General (Tripura sector) Ramesh Singh told Hindustan Times from Agartala.

Organizations such as All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), having spearheaded a major anti-foreigners agitation, are not amused by such technicalities. “Our demand for a second line of defence along the Indo-Bangladesh border has been vindicated,” said AASU advisor Samujjal K Bhattacharyya.

The Northeast has since 1971 been touchy about a “demographic invasion” from Bangladesh. New Delhi subsequently woke up to the presence of some 30 million illegal Bangladeshis and decided in the late 1980s to fence the Indo-Bangladesh border.

A Union Home Ministry report in November last year said 3,437 km border of the 4,095 km India-Bangladesh border was to be fenced by March 2010. It added work had been completed along a 2,800 km stretch.

By October 2007, India had spent Rs 2,881.58 crore on fencing and flood-lighting on a 2,529 km stretch of the border.

Book reunites Chinese de-Indianized by 1962 war

Rita Choudhury took four years to write Makam, meaning ‘golden horse’ in Cantonese.

These four years helped the characters of her 608-page book – descendants of tea specialists British planters had smuggled in from China in 1836 – reunite with some 3,000 Chinese settlers ‘de-Indianized’ after the Sino-Indian war of 1962.

The reason why Sahitya Akademi award winner Choudhury did not gallop to see her ninth Assamese novel in print was to “feel the pain” of a community disowned and wronged by both India and China.

“The British had surreptitiously brought tea cultivators, all males, from areas around Canton and Macau to help establish the tea industry in eastern Assam. Unable to return to their homeland, they married local women and settled down. Yet, the descendants of Chinese fathers and Indian mothers were accused of being Chinese agents in 1962 and jailed. Many were deported to China only to be spurned by Peking (Beijing) and left high and dry. Those who remained had their property taken away. This book is a compilation of what these Indians of Chinese origin went through for close to five decades,” said Choudhury.

Take the case of Ho Kok Men (72). This motor mechanic from Makum – the name of this town in eastern Assam’s Tinsukia district is derived from ‘makam’ – was among a handful of males who returned home after the Indian government released them from an internment camp in Rajasthan in 1965.

“Almost all male members of our extended family had been deported in two-three batches. The anti-Chinese wave apparently lost steam when our turn came,” Ho told Hindustan Times. He returned to Makum, but by then his house and garage had been seized and auctioned off as enemy property.

Son of an Assamese mother, Ho married an Assamese and started life from scratch in Tinsukia, 10 km from Makum. His son Man Khee manages his automobile workshop in Tinsukia.

Choudhury traveled to Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and US to meet the Chinese-Assamese displaced by the 1962 war. During her research, some 1,500 Makum residents forced to leave India reconnected with their roots.

Closer home, the book brought together friends separated by the war – like Kaushalya Barua and Alaan Wang. Barua retired as the principal of the Assamese medium school she studied in along with Alaan before the latter “disappeared suddenly” in 1962.

Alaan and her kin were lodged in central Assam’s Nagaon Jail. “My mother and I were released but not before all the male members of our family were taken away to Rajasthan never to be seen again,” she recounted. “I hope they are all well, somewhere on this earth.”